Bunch winding is ordinarily carried out when a yarn is wound on a bobbin supported on a bobbin holder in a winding machine.
According to the conventional bunch winding method, a yarn between a drum and the yarn end gripped by the paper tube or between the paper tube and the end face of the bobbin holder is guided outside the traverse region of the paper tube by a yarn handler guide moving in parallel to the bobbin axis, and the paper tube is caused to fall in contact with the surface of a drum and the paper tube is thus rotated to effect bunch winding. In this conventional method, because of the limitation by the amount of the yarn wound on the paper tube, the bunch winding position is restricted to a very narrow region in the end portion of the paper tube. Even if the yarn end is handled to this position by the yarn handler guide, bunch winding is not always conducted at the predetermined position, and it sometimes happens that the yarn intrudes into the wound yarn layer or the yarn falls from the end face of the paper tube and is wound on the bobbin holder, with the result that the bunch winding operation is not carried out stably. Furthermore, provision of such yarn handler guides to respective winding units for performance of bunch winding renders the structure of the winding mechanism more complicated, and if such yarn handler guide is mounted on the side of the doffing device or the paper tube inserting apparatus, the bunch winding position becomes more unstable.